Why can't we just get some Solar Pons stories and dilute the incentive to copyright extort?

The Estate of August Derleth make Doyle's relatives look like gentle-minded communists.

The solution there is obvious: tell stories about Stellar Ponce, who lives at 6B Cabbell St with his assistant Dr. Lyndon and his landlady Mrs. Isaacson, and dare them to come after you.

I have never read any Solar Pons stories. I'll check then out. Thank.

The Doyle estate's business strategy is plain: charge a modest license fee for which there is no legal basis, in the hope that the "rational" writer or publisher asked for the fee will pay it rather than incur a greater cost, in legal expenses, in challenging the legality of the demand.

It's time the estate, in its own self-interest, changed its business model.

- Judge Posner (perhaps the greatest living legal scholar) after noting that the methods they use might also violate antitrust laws.

I think Posner's a bit of a tool, but I agree with his analysis here.

yeah, the two things are not incompatible.

The complaint even includes some fun literary analysis about what a hardcore jerk the original Holmes was

Elementary | Holmes Wakes Watson - Complete Compilation

It had never occurred to me that Sherlock Holmes might still be in copyright, if only in the US, not UK, where all of a person's rights expire at the same time. Having only some rights expire lays a legal minefield, which is of course what has happened here.

Sherlock Holmes character is in public domain. The Estate are being jerks about it, this is similar to Happy Birthday debacle from few years back where Hollywood was paying royalty fees because a random company was sending them bills.
The Estate has been slapped on the wrist multiple times already but they still trying to milk their money out of ignorant or those unwilling to challenge them.

Doyle died 90 years ago. How could anything he created still be copyrighted? Last I heard, the duration of copyright protection was the lifetime of the author plus 70 years.

In the U.S... . For works first published prior to 1978, the term will vary depending on several factors. For Sherlock Holmes, copyright protection in the U.S. extended for 95 years from the date of the work’s first publication. Out of a total of 56 short stories and four novels to feature Sherlock Holmes, a final 10 short stories that Doyle published between 1923 and 1927 are still in copyright.

https://www.robertreeveslaw.com/blog/sherlock-holmes-belongs-to-everyone/

I consider all copyright extensions to be a breach of contract and invalid. Fuck that shit.

Edit: I read the link, sounds like some specific work for hire stories he wrote near the end of his life fall under the 95 years after publication date rule so there's no extension involved. However: copyright would actually belong to whoever paid for the story in the first place as work for hire, and only those specific stories would be covered by copyright. The character of Sherlock Holmes is fair game. The Doyle estate are parasites who are demonstrating why copyrights need to expire.

The good news is in two years they no longer own shit.

Thumbgirl looks like Sam Huntington.